Ethereum ICOs Raise $700 Million In Just One Month

The most prominent ICOs have raised $642 million in 19 days, according to data we’ve compiled, with many smaller ones raising another approximate $60 million in what is developing as the biggest decentralized venture funding in history.

The ICO boom was opened by BAT on the 31st of May, just about missing our arbitrary one month criteria, raising $36 millions in seconds during a frenzied bot race that sent everyone else off the ethereum network.

But the show did not start until Bancor raised a cool $150 million on June 13th, making it the biggest crowdfunding in history – for a few days.

Status followed on June 21st, clogging up ethereum’s network in the process of raising $99 million as everyone rushed to get into the token sale, with thousands of transactions stuck, giving those who were unable to make it plenty of reasons to complain.

Just days later, on June 24th, there were some “smaller” ICOs, with OpenANX raising $16 million while TenX quickly reached their cap of $67 million, with their token sale lasting about ten minutes.

But the show had just begun as EOS raised 650,000 eth, worth some $200 million, taking the crown off Bancor and even flirting with bragging rights about having more than the Ethereum Foundation itself.

Thankfully, they reached their first stage cap before surpassing EF’s approximate 800,000 eth holdings, but what happened next shows just why everyone wants some of these ICOs.

EOS’s price rose from around $1 to a brief high of $6.90 after it was listed on Kraken at the same day the first stage token sale ended.

EOS’s price action on the first day of trading.

Tezos had a quieter affair, raising some $110 million by last count, with their uncapped token sale continuing. Here, the tokens are different from almost all the others mentioned above because they are building their own blockchain. In return, you receive a digital currency called tez.

EOS is building their own blockchain too, but they seemingly don’t think their digital currencies are worthy of the crowdsale investors. So what exactly EOS sold is a mystery, like much of how precisely they are to deliver on many of their fantastic claims.

Funds raised by ICOs in the past 19 days.

There you have it. The artists and the opportunists, the flippers and the academics, the get rich quick and the get rich slow, the running crowds and the spectators.

It’s a boom where this time everyone can take part. A boom where some will win and some will lose, some will build and some will run and hide, as the ethereum spring gives way to the summer craze where nearly a billion dollars is given to just six start-ups.

Twitter must be crying they were in time “only” for VC funded social networks. While VCs are likely wondering whether they are funding their own disruptors.

Not that they have much say in any of this as the crowds have risen and want more innovators, more projects, more token sales, but something is being lost.

The DAO dream. When all this was conceived, there was a vision. A vision where we don’t just give away our money, but lock them in a smart contracts and unlock them as we please based on performance by the start-ups.

A vision where we become the CEOs, the Board of Directors, hiring due diligence personnel, accountants, lawyers, the lot, with the smart contract automating much of the decentralized organization.

A vision of a new world where we just log in and see based on summary reports how companies are doing, what high level decisions need to be made, what new interesting innovative project to fund.

Maybe what we’re getting isn’t too different. Sure, we have no control whatever over our own money once we just give them away, nor accountability if they run away, nor really any way of incentivizing them since we are paying them up-front.

But everything has to start somewhere and in this day and age, when people, companies, even machines, can have their own money, that everything start at a cool one billion dollars.